Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective

Subject: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: stevesg
Date: 02 Aug 10 - 03:49 PM

I am looking for history, personal stories, artifacts, etc, about the OJC community in Boston, MA. It was active during the 60s.

thanks, steve

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 01:14 AM

I'm sure you've already seen this, Steve, but for the sake of others:

http://www.banjohangout.org/topic/183898

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collec
From: Charley Noble
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 08:02 AM

Steve-

You might try corresponding with Bobbi Keppel (widow of Bob Keppel) who is resident in Portland. I've provided her e-mail address as a PM.

The co-op sounds as if it was an exciting place to live in the 1960's and '70's. Whatever happened to it?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: Midchuck
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 09:38 AM

Went to jams there once or twice, when I should have been reading the Law.

(I often say, if I'd had a better attitude in law school, I might have gotten good grades, made Law Review, and gotten a big money job. I might even have gotten into one of the New York financial firms and had a corner office at the top of the World Trade Center...)

Peter

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: stevesg
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 10:46 AM

thanks!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 07:04 PM

It was in Cambridge, on Fayette St. (between Harvard & Central Squares).

I went to a number of singing parties there in 1998 & 1999, hosted by Don Duncan, a resident.

It lasted until 2004, when it was Done In By Real Estate. Some of the stockholders, no longer resident, coveted the wealth due to the house's increase in value, so it had to be sold.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: open mike
Date: 03 Aug 10 - 11:40 PM

Maybe someone at the Fellowship for Intentional Communities would know
http://fic.ic.org/
http://www.ic.org/

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: GUEST,Tom Horth
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 04:36 PM

Old Joe Clark on Fayette St. in Cambridge was in existence before 1957. People I knew who lived there in the '50s included Jerry Wencker, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Keppel (I think). Most were students at MIT. They often cooked communal meals. And they were all into folk music. They were listed in the Boston phone book under "Clark, Old Joe."

At the time there there were monthly songfests at MIT, sponsored by the MIT Outing Club (called Hootenanys), and at the International House on Garden St. in Cambridge near Harvard. Peggy Seeger, a student at Radcliffe at the time, sometimes led the International House songfests. I remember one night when Peggy, Mike and Penny Seeger were all there. Remember, this was shortly before Joan Baez came to the area. I think Club 47 was in existence at its first location, but I never went there

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: GUEST,Tom Horth
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 05:21 PM

Ooops, correction. The MIT Outing Club (MITOC) songfests were called Lauletaans. It's the Finnish word for Sing.

I think Hootenany was a word associated with New York songfests originally.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 10:06 PM

Active in the 1950s as well, when I remember singing at quite a few parties from 1956 through '59, coming down from Hanover NH and staying over in a sleeping bag for the weekend.

You never knew who might show up there; in about winter 1958 (I think) Rev. Gary Davis came in and sang; I remember sitting at his feet and watching his fingers move on those frets.

Bob Keppel's name brings back memories of Bob and Bobbie singing there, as well as Jim Butler, Lulu McGraw and many more whose faces I recall but not their names. Among them the guy named Jerry, not a singer, who lived upstairs at Old Joe's showing me his cherished first edition of H.P. Lovecraft's rare (even then) first edition of The Outsider and Others (a mutual obsession) ... So it was sort of a fabulously multifaceted place.

Wish I could dredge my memory for more names, but it's getting to be, well, a long time.

Bob

Subject: RE: Folklore: Old Joe Clark co-op, commune, collective
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 08:58 PM

Another long-term resident was Sandy Sheehan, eponym of Sandy's Music on Mass. Av., an ancient (1960s?) institution that he has had to close down for reasons of health. Of course, he had had to move when the house was sold. A crying shame all around.

Guest Tom: MITOC songfests were often held at the rooming house I lived in in the early '60s (44 Irving St., in Harvard Sq.; long since condoized, of course). I never heard about Lauletaans; I think they were simply called parties. In addition to the usual instruments, we had an oldfashioned pump organ, propelled by a vacuum cleaner (in a closet to suppress the noise).